


Write Me a Story

by des0lates0ul



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bisexual Archie Andrews, M/M, i got this idea from a list of prompts on tumblr, i just really liked it tbh, my gay boys, this is kinda gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10917717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/des0lates0ul/pseuds/des0lates0ul
Summary: Throughout his entire life, Jughead had heard about a myth which claimed that your soulmate has the ability to draw on your skin.Or, Jughead has a habit of doodling on his arm, and the person receiving the ink decides to find out what's going on.





	Write Me a Story

For longer than he could accurately guess, Archie has found weird marks all over his skin. And not even anything relatively normal, like bruises or scratches from God knows where. Each mark is in a dark blue ink, sometimes splayed across the inside of his left arm, sometimes on his knees and upper thighs, sometimes all down his fingers. He never really knew how to handle it, nor did he know what to do about the strange looks he’d receive when yet another line appeared out of nowhere on his golden skin.

Jughead had a bad tendency of writing on himself. As in, he was doing it constantly. Every time he found himself daydreaming or nodding off, uninterested in class or whatever else was going on around him, he found that he would draw on the inside of his arm. If he were home and relaxing in a pair of shorts, his thighs would become victim. His hands were no strangers to the blue ink that would trace his pale skin. From what he imagined, it was his body’s way of coping since he’d stopped self harming. But he didn’t mind the temporary artwork that would wash off the following day.

For three years this has been going on.

And all it took was a very sleepy Archie to draw on his own arm to see if anything would happen. And that boy had no expectations.

It was finals week and an unnecessary amount of doodles were appearing on the redhead’s arm this week. For the most part it was numbers or personal reminders to study, and it was still as intriguing to Archie as ever. He wanted to know who would write this kind of random stuff on their arm and who would draw tally marks and blank tic tac toe boards on their thighs.

Jughead was impeccably stressed. He could hardly remember to breathe most days, let alone function properly enough to study and do homework and that was the reason that he had so many textbook page numbers scrawled across the inside of his milky white forearm. The tic tac toe boards on his legs though? That was boredom.

It didn’t take long for Archie to become so entranced with this whole mess of letters and numbers and lines that he decided to take part in it. He didn’t think anything of it when he drew out a blank hangman game on his wrist, drawing just enough lines for his first name and then putting his pen down to continue copying the history notes that he’d written four months ago and long since forgotten about.

Ten minutes later, there was a dark blue “A” on his arm, right under the blanks that he’d placed there. Even less interested in his history lesson than fifteen minutes prior, he filled in the “A” on the first blank and went back to work.

Each time he finished writing a sentence, he checked his wrist again. Nothing new. It was two in the morning by the time he went to bed, no new ink on his wrist that hadn’t previously been there.

Archie woke up the next morning prepared enough for his history final to pass but not enough to get any higher than an eighty. He noticed that there was a dark blue capital “E” right next to the “A” that’d been placed seven hours ago, before he’d fallen asleep.

He filled in the blank space at the end and waited impatiently for another letter to appear.

Throughout his entire life, Jughead had heard about a myth which claimed that your soulmate has the ability to draw on your skin. He’d not once in his life considered that this could be possible, but that was probably because his parents had split and therefore weren’t soulmates. It freaked him out, to say the least. But he wasn’t unhappy about it. If anything, it just meant he had a better chance at true love than his parents had.

The rest of the vowels filled in Archie’s arm after the previous one was either accepted or declined. Half of his name was already written, and it was nearly impossible for whoever was writing with him to not know who it was. There was really only one Archie at their school. But then again, that only applied if his doodler was another Riverdale High student.

Jughead was dumbfounded. It was most definitely Archie Andrews. If it had started with any letter other than A, he’d still be in a shithole of wonder. But there was no doubt in his mind that the redheaded running-back was his apparent soulmate. Which was a plot twist he’d never have expected.

It took the rest of the day for Archie to reply to letters that were all correct and fully fill in his own name, and by the time he got on the bus to go home another blank hangman appeared further up his arm. The blue ink that’d been placed there throughout the day was replaced by it, and he began the game in the same way that the mystery person had - all vowels.

In half an hour, he got “U,” “E,” and “A” filled into the second, fifth and sixth blanks out of seven. It still gave him absolutely no clue as to who it could be. He didn’t know anyone with letters in that order, let alone anyone with seven letters in their name. He was dumbfounded; clueless, to say the least. He threw out a bunch of random letters, and the only one that got him anywhere was “H.”

Jughead was having a blast with this. Even though the redhead was trying so hard, he couldn’t figure out who it was and Jug planned to keep it that way. No reason to go and unnecessarily involve himself in a boy that belongs to an entirely different crowd than him.

All Archie had left was one foot. If this damn foot were added, he’d never find out. So he started choosing other letters, ones that he didn’t even think belonged in a first name. A dark black “G” appeared on Jughead’s arm, next to the pile of other rejected consonants. He reluctantly filled it in, realizing now that it was obvious enough for Archie to guess. Which is exactly what he did.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when the full name was sprawled in a child’s handwriting all across his inner forearm. It was nearly ten in the evening and he had to sleep before his game the following day, but he wrote his own cell phone number on his palm before he went to bed with high hopes that Jughead would understand the message he was attempting to convey.

  
xxx

  
The next morning, Jughead woke up with his phone tucked right under his head, warm from his body sleeping over it. There were two notifications that flashed across the screen, one about a reading assignment due that day, the other from a number he scarcely recognized. It took him quite a few moments to remember that he’d texted Archie at two in the morning, immediately after finding the number scrawled on his palm. It was a simple hello, but even that made his heart race in his chest. He was beyond nervous.

The reply was two questions, asking how the raven-haired boy had slept and if he were attending the football game that night. He sent a response regarding his lack of sleep, and a second one immediately following confirming that he’d be at the game, but only this once to see if all of the rumors were true that Archie Andrews was the best player on the team. The redhead replied with a laughing emoji, and school ensued as it had for the past three years.

-

Jughead sat at the top of the ice cold bleachers, tucked into the corner and as far away from human interaction as possible. He was only looking for plays made by number 9, the boy that was covered in mud and grass stains with sweat running down his cheeks, smearing his eye black. Jughead had never been to a football game before, nor had he ever planned on it, but he was determined to actually meet Archie.

The game didn’t last too long (it was longer than Jughead would’ve preferred) and within seconds he saw the redheaded boy sprinting up the stairs of the bleachers and shoving through people to get to the cold boy in the corner.

Archie sat down next to Jughead, wiping the sweat off of his forehead and rubbing his hand on his already sweaty thighs. Jughead wasn’t sure if it were the cold air, the exercise, or a blush, but the football player’s cheeks were painted a red as dark as his noticeably chapped lips.

“So…you read all of my notes that I write on my arm?” Jughead cocked an eyebrow and smirked lightly, trying to seem as if he weren’t shaking out of his skin.

“Never intentionally, they just appear on my arm you know,” Archie replied, showing off a full smile and a hint of a dimple on his left cheek.

“Well, this just means we’re soulmates.”

“Way to throw that out on the table during our first interaction ever, Juggie.”

Jughead smiled at the nickname, not even caring that he’d been sassed and would probably never hear the end of this from Archie.

“You know it, I know it, the entirety of the human population with fully functioning brains and internet access knows it. Now we just need to see where this goes,” Jughead quipped back, leaning against the back of the bleachers and smirking again.

xxx

Four months later, the two boys were inseparable. It was nearly instantaneous how well they got along and how close they became. No one in Riverdale would have ever expected one of the star football players to end up with a guy, let alone Jughead “the freak” Jones. But it worked out.

“Pop’s date after school?” The black haired boy jostled his boyfriend, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Do I ever turn down a good milkshake?”

The two carried on with their days, hardly getting through to the end. And even then, the diner date was the sole thing that pulled them through.

It wasn’t a long walk from the school to Pop’s, and they were there within ten minutes after the final bell of the day rang. It was cold and dry outside, wind whipping through Archie’s hair and tugging on Jughead’s whoopee cap. They held hands the entire walk to the diner, attempting to retain some heat in at least one part of their bodies with all of the cold air that was surrounding them.

They sat across from each other in the first open booth they could find, ordering one chocolate shake with two straws and two cherries. It wasn’t long before Pop delivered their order, both of them taking slow sips and making jokes with each other the entire time. It was starting to get dark out, and Jughead knew they didn’t have much time left before they had to part ways for the evening.

He took a blue pen out of his pocket, the one he always had with him, and uncapped it. He scribbled on his arm a bit, trying to make it the least obvious that he could. He left a $20 on the table to cover the three shakes they’d consumed and tugged Archie out of the booth, bringing him outside to say goodbye.

The two shared a light kiss, shadowed by the neon lights in the window of Pop’s, baby soft lips against ones that’d been chapped for four months straight. It wasn’t long before they got to Archie’s house, sharing another kiss before Jughead turned the opposite direction to either go home or make his way back to Pop’s.

Archie trudged up the stairs, slightly disappointed that he couldn’t spend as much time with his boyfriend as he wanted to. He opened the door to his room and shrugged off his varsity jacket, left in his grey tee-shirt and jeans that were quickly discarded on the floor. He didn’t even have the energy to shower before bed; he climbed right in and unlocked his phone, the blue light showing off a new line of blue ink on the inside of his left arm.

It was very small, so small that he almost missed it. The childlike handwriting that definitely belonged to his boyfriend was right on his wrist, stark in contrast to his tanned skin. He smiled, brighter than he ever had.

_I love you, Archibald Andrews_.


End file.
